View “Art in Bloom, Visit Virtual Lyman Conservatory” by Rowan Wheeler ’21.

How can we enjoy physical spaces when we’re unable to visit them in person?

The Lyman Conservatory and Smith College Museum of Art have been closed to the public since March 2020 because of COVID precautions. For my Museum Studies capstone project, I wanted to make a way to visit Lyman virtually, creating an immersive experience where visitors could move and look around the space at their own pace.

What happens if we look at plants in the same way that we look at art?

By juxtaposing works from the Smith College Museum of Art collection with the plants that inspired them, I hope to raise new ways of looking closely at the world. Art museums and conservatories are both museums, but we experience and interpret them very differently. I hope this exhibition inspires you to notice the details and intention behind every paintbrush stroke and shape of a leaf that you encounter within Virtual Lyman.